IT’S one thing for a player to be shadowed on the ice by a checker, the way Jaromir Jagr was for a time by Jay Pandolfo, or Bobby Hull was by a pest named Bugsy Watson.

It’s quite another thing, however, for a player to be shadowed on the ice by game officials, the way that Sean Avery has been by referees and linesmen alike throughout the first three games of his return to the Rangers.

The NHL is on trial here every much as is Avery, the man Gary Bettman suspended for saying bad words on television, but whose television partners have no trouble exploiting to attract and keep viewers.

Avery has done his time for whatever the crime was that he committed. Now he is entitled to the same equal protection under the law that is applied to every other player in the NHL, even those who have rap sheets for head-hunting and foot stomping.

He is entitled to play his game without a referee or linesman in his face after every whistle, or whispering to him prior to faceoffs, or escorting him to the bench during stops in play.

He is entitled to drive 58 in the middle lane of the Major Deegan without being pulled over by the authorities for speeding while cars doing 70 in the left lane go scot-free.

Avery was called for three penalties in the last two games. Maybe they all were rule-book penalties, and maybe they weren’t. There is, however, no doubt at all that the referees working both Bruins-Rangers at the Garden on Sunday and Rangers-Hurricanes in Raleigh on Monday allowed dozens of other far more blatant rule-book infractions to go unpenalized.

Understand. Avery is not on parole and required to check in with his P.O. every week. He is not on some work-release program where he reports to a halfway house at night. He is a member of good standing in the NHL and must be treated as such. The NHL’s integrity is at stake.

Avery cannot speak up. Neither can his teammates. Neither can John Tortorella. The Rangers cannot risk a league-wide officiating vendetta against the organization. Jim Schoenfeld should know about that, given the beating the Devils took for years after his 1988 “doughnut” confrontation with Don Koharski.

Never forget: The whistle always trumps words.

The NHL may not want Avery on the ice, but that sure hasn’t stopped the league from prominently featuring the Avery Saga on its showcase Web-site homepage at every opportunity.

Sixth Avenue may think Avery is a menace to society, but the fact is, this past Sunday’s Rangers-Bruins game featuring No. 16’s first encore at the Garden drew better overnight national ratings on NBC than the Feb. 22 matchup between Alexander Ovechkin’s Caps and Sidney Crosby’s Penguins.

Maybe that’s why the network is promoting this coming Sunday’s game as, “Sean Avery and the Rangers against the Flyers.”

Might be a tad opportunistic and exploitive, but hey.

Avery has brought the spotlight on himself, everyone understands that. But that spotlight also is trained on the NHL and its officials. As the evidence mounts, the whole hockey world will be watching and the whole hockey world will know whether the NHL has an agenda to persecute Avery.